Goes to show that not only can I be a complete moron at times, but I also put my computer through hell while doing so. This would be defined as the most idiotic, dangerous, insane way to check your disk for issues...

How to *really* test if your HD has bad sectors or not...

Window's disk cleanup notification bubble appeared and told me that I had "Low Disk Space on Drive C:" (this was after I noticed the decline from 1.04GB to 780MB to 180MB). As I type this post, it brought up a congratulation message telling me that I was able to recover enough space for Windows to not die:

If I am correct, a BSoD or some other major error would occur when a drive attempts to write to a bad sector or cluster. By filling the *entire* drive, there would be no possibility of a bad sector because an error would be thrown. Right?

Here you can download some serious harddisk checking software. Seriously, I recommend MHDD. It comes on CD or floppy, boot from it, choose the drive you want to check and let it run. The possibilities of this program are very interesting, but possibly very destructive as well.

Yes, writing to a bad section will trigger errors. You'll see messages like "delayed-write failure" and such... but just having your harddrive "fill up" doesn't mean each sector is actually written to, and it doesn't catch errors that could have appeared on areas that are used by "read-only" files.

But you really need a proper testing tool to do detailed and accurate diagnostics

Here you can download some serious harddisk checking software. Seriously, I recommend MHDD. It comes on CD or floppy, boot from it, choose the drive you want to check and let it run. The possibilities of this program are very interesting, but possibly very destructive as well.

Shades, I followed the link and looked in the usual places, but can't find anything in English. Is there anything written in English on that site? If so, can you post a link to it? Something is really wrong with my computer. Thanks

That is the problem, the site (and software) is written by Russians and only the software is in English. My 'Russian' will be just as bad as yours, but I found out about this software from a blog.

I added two attachments, which are log files of my download software. In there should be the direct link to the files. Hopefully those files are still available. When that is not the case I can mail whichever one you prefer, as I don't think that a site like DC is allowed to host them. The first attachment is for the .ISO the second for an .EXE to be stored on a bootable DOS floppy.

MHDD is able to do a lot of things, check your hard-disk is just one of them. It is also possible to adjust the size, create bad sectors (?), hide/enable data, .BAT scripting and a lot of things more. But be warned, make an error and you are in serious trouble. By default the software is setup to check harddisks, only when you have manually changed something the software will do as you have ordered.

Personally, I have used the software only to check several harddisks here and no complaints about that functionality. When I have a harddisk with a serious problem, I like to play with the other features of this software though